I am a cloud application architect with 10 years' experience in software development in several languages, including Perl, Java and C#. I'm an Irishman living in Calgary, Canada. GitHub on @cubikca.
Location
Calgary, Canada
Education
BSc. Computing and Info Systems, Athabasca University
What a topic! I've approached this from both sides - as a hobbyist developer and in my day job.
In my day job, I often choose F/OSS software because it is the best choice. But, when choosing F/OSS, I am very careful with liceneses, because it changes my approach to using the software. I'll use AGPL 3.0 as an example, since you mention it. AGPL is anathema to commercial software. Anything that touches this viral copyleft license is potentially something the author or any of the public users may demand. Therefore it is important to limit the use of such software to internal users only. If there are no public users, the author has no right to the modifications. So, I treat a license like this as hostile, and get as much out of it as the law will allow.
As a developer, I'm looking to abdicate as much responsibility as possible while still allowing others to do whatever they want with my code. MIT fits the bill just fine.
But these are two extremes. Later versions of GPL probably do what you want if you are creating a project for a community. It keeps you apprised of downstream changes, prevents anyone else from making money off of it, but still makes it usable in a commercial environment provided you respect the authors' rights.
I guess I'll end with the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer, I only know a lawyer. This has been my experience with F/OSS licenses. Each one has it's purpose, and you need to choose carefully based on the rights you want to retain.
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What a topic! I've approached this from both sides - as a hobbyist developer and in my day job.
In my day job, I often choose F/OSS software because it is the best choice. But, when choosing F/OSS, I am very careful with liceneses, because it changes my approach to using the software. I'll use AGPL 3.0 as an example, since you mention it. AGPL is anathema to commercial software. Anything that touches this viral copyleft license is potentially something the author or any of the public users may demand. Therefore it is important to limit the use of such software to internal users only. If there are no public users, the author has no right to the modifications. So, I treat a license like this as hostile, and get as much out of it as the law will allow.
As a developer, I'm looking to abdicate as much responsibility as possible while still allowing others to do whatever they want with my code. MIT fits the bill just fine.
But these are two extremes. Later versions of GPL probably do what you want if you are creating a project for a community. It keeps you apprised of downstream changes, prevents anyone else from making money off of it, but still makes it usable in a commercial environment provided you respect the authors' rights.
I guess I'll end with the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer, I only know a lawyer. This has been my experience with F/OSS licenses. Each one has it's purpose, and you need to choose carefully based on the rights you want to retain.